Home > Management and Careers > Careers

Computerworld - While IT staffs no longer enjoy boom times, most are holding their own compared with other employees. In a 2003 survey that Meta Group just conducted of trends affecting the IT workforce, three quarters of the companies responding indicated that pay for IT personnel has risen higher than that for non-IT staff. Nonetheless, the number of companies increasing IT pay is still below the high of 80% of companies during the peak for IT labor in 2000.

IT raises continue to be substantial, with 6% the average and 20% on the high end. This is in part a result of merit increases in base pay that continue to be higher for IT staff, averaging between 5% and 8% more than salaries for non-IT staff. The increases are also because of premiums that some companies continue to offer as perks attached to specific skills, though the amounts companies are willing to pay for hot skills are somewhat less than we observed in 2002.

By and large, senior-level positions command the highest salary increases. These positions include senior database administrators, senior architects, network administrators, infrastructure architects and designers, all of whom are benefiting from the view that they are critical to the business—and thus should be paid more. In a few cases, companies report giving these staffers as much as 12% to 15% in base salary increases.

	Maria Schafer's current research responsibilities focus on IT human capital management, staffing and compensation strategies. Her earlier positions gave her extensive experience in IT staffing, recruitment and human resource management at several major companies, including Thomson Publishing, Nynex Corp. and CBS Publishing.

Where IT pay has taken a hit is in bonuses. A few years ago, 90% of IT employees received bonuses, a huge change from the mid-1990s, when bonuses were largely the domain of IT management. Y2k and Internet development changed all that and, combined with "dot-com mania," rapidly created a bonus-entitlement mentality. Bonuses continue to be paid to most IT staffers (74% of our survey respondents indicate they pay bonuses to IT employees), but bonus amounts have dropped greatly for most positions. As an example, bonus payouts for application delivery positions (programmers, systems analysts) have dropped by about 30% from last year, as well as for other job categories. Smaller payouts have hit IT staff hard, but there have been fewer IT layoffs overall than in other sectors, despite well-publicized vendor difficulties.

The staying power in IT salaries points out the ongoing need for IT skills and the critical nature they play in driving a company's agenda. IT salary rates continue to outpace those for other staff, even in low-turnover times, because quality IT personnel aren't easy to come by, particularly in high-demand senior-level categories (senior Web development, IT management and infrastructure positions), regardless of the specific economic climate. While most Global 2,000 firms are having no difficulty in hiring IT staff (should they have open jobs), they have had to maintain salary levels to remain competitive. This trend won't diminish for the foreseeable future, a fact that points to the need for ongoing skill development and for a "care and feeding" approach to managing IT employees.